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Get Educated On State Statutes And Ordinances With Municode
Play The World’s Biggest Pac-Man Maze
Microsoft Ramps Up Promo With SwitchToHotmail.com
Best ‘Computer Skills’ Video I’ve Ever Seen

Get Educated On State Statutes And Ordinances With Municode

Posted: 21 Apr 2011 03:00 AM PDT

If you’ve been living in any area of the United States long enough, you’re most likely aware of certain state laws, as those are considered "the biggies". For example, a common statewide law in most US states are that safety belts must be worn while driving a car. You were probably made aware of this from large signage promoting the NHTSA‘s "Click It Or Ticket" campaign.

When it comes to city ordinances however, most people don’t have the first clue what’s legal and what isn’t only because they’re not aware of what the law is.

Ordinances traditionally only apply to cities, and sometimes even just portions (as in districts) of cities; it’s difficult at times to know whether you’re within the boundaries of the law or not concerning certain activities. A standard complaint by many is, "If I knew what the law was in the first place, I wouldn’t have broken it", followed by the request of, "Where can I get easy access to all current city ordinances so I can educate myself?"

Fortunately there’s Municode.com Municipal Code Library. This is a free service that covers the vast majority of city ordinances for all 50 states.

This library is laid out in simple point-and-click style (meaning not the typical ‘mountain of PDFs’ style of downloading) and is also searchable on a per-city level.

A quick example

You’re a resident of Tampa, Florida and want to dig a hole to install an antenna mast.

1. Go to the code library as linked above.

2. Click the State of Florida or select Florida from the drop-down menu.

3. Locate the City of Tampa link and click it (cities and towns are listed in alphabetical order).

4. Select the Tampa Code of Ordinances.

5. At top right of the next screen, search for dig.

6. The search results will show the appropriate documents you need to read:

7. On click of the first search result (which is the red text, by the way), you get the pertinent information you were looking for:

I now have a general idea of what I can and can’t do, what’s allowed/disallowed under certain conditions, and what I would need a permit for. (I’m purposely not listing the entire text because it would scroll on for too long concerning this article.)

Municode.com allowed me to get this information in seconds.

It should be said that you should not take Municode.com’s existing documentation as gospel as most of the info presented is listed in ‘simple’ layout. When reading up on ordinances, you should confirm they’re accurate by calling the city directly.

Believe me, this is one to keep in your bookmarks because sooner or later you’ll have to look up an ordinance or two.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

Get Educated On State Statutes And Ordinances With Municode

Play The World’s Biggest Pac-Man Maze

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 08:00 AM PDT

Fans of the original Pac-Man game are very aware the game only features a single maze which you probably have memorized. However, if you are looking for a new challenge, a to check out is the World’s Biggest Pac-Man Maze.

When you visit the page, your browser is instantly filled with thumbnails of thousands of different Pac-Man mazes… all connected to each other. You simply click on a maze and off you go. The big difference when you are playing is if you go off the side of the maze, instead of wrapping to the other size of the current maze, you will be moved to the adjacent maze making this a virtually endless game.

Pac-Man fans definitely give this is a whirl.

It is important to note, this game only works on IE9.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

Play The World’s Biggest Pac-Man Maze

Microsoft Ramps Up Promo With SwitchToHotmail.com

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 07:00 AM PDT

Microsoft’s Windows Live Hotmail is, if I’m not mistaken, the most-used email in the world. When you combine all the Hotmail domains (hotmail.com, live.com and msn.com and all their country-specific domains), it totals up to a colossal user base. If Hotmail isn’t #1 then they’re at least in the top 5.

And if you’re wondering, no, Gmail isn’t anywhere near Hotmail’s numbers concerning the number of users in the system – but this is only because Hotmail has much more tenure in the market.

With Hotmail’s ginormous user base, one wonders why Microsoft would even need to promote the Hotmail product. Well, evidently they feel the need to do so, thus we have SwitchToHotmail.com.

Something I immediately noticed on this web site are the jabs made at Yahoo! Mail. You’ll see more than a few quotes there from "ex-Yahoo! Mail user" types, and there’s even a huge header taking a stab directly at Y! Mail:

Is it really worth Microsoft’s time and effort to even attempt converting Y! Mail users to the Hotmail system? I mean, it’s pretty obvious they won’t go after Gmail folk because let’s face it – Gmail users use that email to get away from systems like Y! Mail and Hotmail. But what would be the point of bringing in Y! users since Microsoft essentially doesn’t need to advertise the product considering how huge it is?

My quick thoughts on the Hotmail product

I’m not a Hotmail user (I use AOL Project Phoenix personally), but I do recognize that the Hotmail product is a darned good one. A lot of effort has been put into that system so that it works everywhere perfectly on both desktop and mobile, has free POP access, a UI that works even on netbooks with no problem, has fast mail delivery and so on. It’s also a sound home-office solution as it integrates with MS Outlook quite nicely these days.

For you anti-Microsoft types out there, even you guys and gals have to admit the Hotmail product is vastly improved compared to how it used to be; this is not the same old craptastic Hotmail you remember from the mid-2000s.

However I still question as to why switchtohotmail.com even exists – and moreover goes after Y! users specifically for that matter. Do they really need those users? Is this indicative the Hotmail product doesn’t have the super-huge active user numbers everybody thinks it does (myself included)?

What do you think?

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

Microsoft Ramps Up Promo With SwitchToHotmail.com